Millions of lives worldwide have been saved or at least prolonged by various implanted and external medical devices such as pacemakers, defibrillators, electrocardiogram monitors and the like. As cardiac-related disorders such as congestive heart failure, ischemia, heart disease and the like become increasingly widespread, the percentage of the population having a need for an implantable, wearable or other medical device continues to rise.
The various types of medical devices presently available typically rely upon combinations of software, custom circuitry, sensors and actuators to detect, diagnose and treat a variety of cardiac events and disease states. Because of the high levels of reliability needed for these devices, the amount of effort required to design, test and implement most medical devices (and medical device components) is significant. In addition to being highly reliable, medical devices and components are typically designed to be extremely efficient in terms of space and electrical power consumption, for example, thereby further constraining designers of such devices. The need to keep medical devices small and power efficient is particularly significant in subcutaneous pacers and other devices that are implanted in a human body, since installation or repair may require the patient to undergo a surgical procedure.
Due to the stringent requirements of reliability, space efficiency and power consumption, most conventional medical devices presently contain large amounts of custom circuitry. While custom circuits are highly efficient, they can be particularly difficult to update and improve, since changes typically require physical modification or replacement of the actual circuits found in the device. As new therapies become available, frequently the only way for existing patients to gain access to the new therapy is to obtain an entirely new device. Further, simply testing new devices, components, therapy algorithms, diagnostic information or the like on custom circuitry can be cumbersome, since testing typically requires that custom circuits implementing the new technology be constructed.
Accordingly, it is desirable to create platforms, devices and/or techniques that are capable of easing the process of designing, testing and implementing new medical devices. Moreover, it is desirable to obtain a new development platform that can be readily modified to take advantage of new therapies. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background of the invention.